Checks and Balances
by bonestrewn
Summary: Date night for Senator Mills and her wife runs up against a stumbling block. Swan Queen AU, oneshot. Sequel to Chief of State.


_Note: I wasn't positive I was going to finish this today but DID ANYONE ELSE'S HEART BURST WITH THE PAIN OF WELCOME TO STORYBROOKE BECAUSE MINE DID. __So there you go. This is precisely the kind of fic I swore I would never write - well, _almost _the kind of fic I swore I'd never write; I sort of skimmed the edges of it. However, I knew that this was a natural place to take Future President Mills and her Future First Lady, so I decided to explore this aspect of their relationship and adulthood. I hope you enjoy! Thank you for taking the time to read!_

* * *

They had a routine. Little signposts on the path to intimacy.

"Thai? Is that Thai?" Emma perked up at the sight of the bag in Regina's hands and practically climbed over the island counter to reach it.

"The hungry Swan at the feed," Regina intoned as Emma began to unload the takeout, laying out containers in a row on the counter top, noodles, rolls, a plastic soup container. Regina leaned over the rice to take a hello kiss from Emma. "Good evening, Mrs. Mills."

Emma hadn't changed her name, but it was a thing with them. A herald at the beginning of date night, always in conjunction with takeout. "Good evening, Senator Mills," she replied. They rarely had time together in the evening like this that wasn't taken up with polling information, speech revision, the closeness of focused ambition. "Are you eating with me?"

Regina made a little pass of her hand. "I already ate."

"And you got this all for me?"

"Nonsense," Regina said. "It's leftovers."

Emma looked down at the food and frowned. She touched the side of the soup container: cold. "Now I'll have to heat it up," she grumbled.

"That is," Regina said, shucking her jacket, "what one customarily does with cold food."

"I like eating dinner with you." Emma flicked a glance up to Regina's face, seeing the slight give at the corners of her eyes, the soft, amused apology there.

"You _fetishize_ eating dinner with me," Regina drawled slowly in reply, putting her jacket over her arm. She leaned against the side of the counter, one hand resting on her hip, a pose Emma recognized, one of those power aggression things Regina had brought back with her from Harvard.

"So maybe I like watching you eat food," Emma said, spreading her hands. "So what? You like tossing your papers on the floor and watching me pick 'em up."

"_Please_," Regina demurred with a roll of her eyes. "I'm hardly so... _Unsubtle._"

"You," Emma said, "fetishize my butt."

"Hmm," Regina replied, and casually slung her jacket over one shoulder, holding it in place with a hand as she left the room. Pose two. Emma counted Regina's poses like counting your spouse's glasses of wine.

Vengefully, Emma turned on the radio while she heated up her food, tuning it to her preferred classic rock station. It played the same five to seven songs over and over again and drove Regina absolutely nuts, which could be a good thing on date night.

"Emma." Regina reappeared in the doorway just as Emma was trying to take a bite of a freshly reheated spring roll, immediately scalding her mouth. Emma coughed heavily. Regina pointed at her, pose three, _j'accuse._ "If I hear 'Livin on a Prayer' one more time in this house..."

When Emma had command of mouth and throat again, she promptly sang off-key, "_Gina dreams of running away _-"

"I am going to kill you," Regina said. "You're a dead woman."

"You'd miss my butt."

Regina left again to finish undressing. The music had been worth seeing her halfway out of her outfit, the vest that Emma _really _liked and the links out of the cuffs of the white shirt under it, baring Regina's wrists and little slices of her narrow forearms. Emma probably fetishized open shirt cuffs too.

When Emma was hunched over at the counter eating, Regina returned, this time in one of Emma's tank tops and a pair of her shorts, circumnavigating counter and wife to peer into the fridge for that gross-looking For Older Women health drink she took like medicine in the mornings and evenings. Emma paused to appreciate the view, from the top of Regina's mussed dark hair to her bare feet with their painted toes, bigger feet than you'd think for someone not built very large. For crushing her enemies, Emma thought fondly, and took another once-over of Regina in the tank top. God bless date night.

"You want me to put on a movie?" Emma said, digging around for the last of the noodles. "Or some mood music?"

Regina went to put her free hand in the pocket of a jacket she wasn't wearing, looking disgruntled when she couldn't complete the gesture. Pose four. "I have some work to take care of."

"What?" That was breaking a date night rule. "Oh, come on, Senator."

Regina couldn't quite disguise how pleased she was, being given her title. She tried to reform her expression into something serious. "It'll give you some time to clean yourself up." Her drink had given her a filmy little mustache over her upper lip; Emma decided not to tell her. Passing by, Regina gave her ass an affectionate pat. "Don't forget to brush your teeth."

_Asshole_, Emma mouthed to Regina's back.

Emma _didn't _forget to brush her teeth, thanks. Regina, mustache gone, finally returned to her when she was sulking in front of the television. Emma had the feeling that it was a big part of her life these days, waiting for Regina to come back to her.

"I couldn't get a single thing done," Regina said, leaning over the back of the couch to wrap her arms around Emma from behind. "I think you're rubbing off on me."

"You're wearing my clothes," Emma pointed out.

Regina tucked her chin onto Emma's shoulder and murmured, "They smell like you," and Emma shivered pleasantly as Regina's hands slid down her front. She caught them with her own, liking the way their hands fit together still, even with the bony backs and the veins and the way Regina had developed Cora's thumbs with age. She brought Regina's hands up, kissed each palm in turn.

"Are you gonna c'mere or what?" Emma said, and Regina, chuckling indulgently like Emma was a little kid lisping for a treat, came around the couch to climb into her wife's lap.

Emma liked Regina this way; she loved looking at her face. Regina had always been so hard for her to hold down, slipping out of her grip like a shadow dancing slyly away, at first in shyness, and then because of the pull of other things, more important than Emma.

She lifted a hand and cupped Regina's cheek. She traced the smooth line of one dark brow with the pads of her fingers, then down to the lines at the corner of Regina's eye. The slight fall of the eyelid, the crook of creases underneath.

"Is there a point to this exercise?" Regina said, because even though these little affections made her purr like a cat, she could never take anything good at face value.

"Just getting a good look at you," Emma said. Regina closed her eyes and lifted her chin with obliging, appreciative vanity.

The curve of Regina's cheekbone was next on Emma's list. Down to the lines that traced down from her nose to the corners of her mouth, which was framed with small, singular little creases that marked the way she pursed her lips.

"You're beautiful," Emma said.

Regina made a little noise, correcting her: "Haggard." See? She could just never accept a good thing.

Regina was aging harder than Emma. There was struggle etched all over her face, written between her brows where they'd knit together in concentration or displeasure, manifesting in the peppery gray that had to be dyed away to suitable darkness on the regular. She'd lost her physical softness, been cut down to the very core of herself, the way sculptors found their image in their marble's center.

Emma took Regina's face gently in her hands. Pretty hot, if you were into the hard-edged power suit-wearing canny political types.

"Emma," Regina said, and fingered a lock of Emma's hair.

"Hmm?" Emma kissed her jaw.

"I was wondering if..." Regina cleared her throat. "If you've had any - regrets."

Emma said, "Nah," and kept kissing.

"Emma, I'm serious."

Frowning, Emma leaned back, looking into Regina's face again. "Are you digging for something here?" she asked.

There was a little pull of discomfort at the corner of Regina's mouth and in her eyes, reminding Emma of the young Regina, the one who'd been as soft and fuzzy and naive as a puppy. "I thought you might regret not having children."

Emma furrowed her brow. "Where's this coming from?" she said. They'd had the kid discussion a long time ago and then put the whole thing on the shelf, where it got dusty and stale and uninteresting.

Regina's lips skewed a little, and Emma _knew _that look, she hated seeing it: it only came when Regina was preparing to _handle _her, the way politicians handled people, sort of tossing them from hand to hand and edging around the question until they could make a break for safety.

"No you don't," Emma said warningly, just a touch too loud for the closeness of the space between them. "Regina, don't."

"Sidney mentioned -"

"_Sidney!_"

Regina seized Emma's shoulders in her scary tight grip, knowing from experience that Emma's first instinct was to leap to her feet for some angry pacing, which would have been a bad idea with Regina in her lap.

"I don't fucking get it," Emma said when she'd settled back against the cushions. "What did Sidney say? Wait, let me guess - 'Senator Mills, have you ever thought about _making a baby_?'" She gave an imitation leer.

"Emma, don't be immature," Regina said.

"Did he volunteer to be the sperm donor?"

"You're being disgusting. I don't deal with disgusting people." Regina gave a haughty little turn of her head and got up off Emma's lap, making basketball shorts and a tank top look like a queen's jewels as she presented Emma with her back.

"You're a _politician_," Emma said and swear to God she _heard _Regina roll her eyes.

The clock over the mantel ticked out a minute or two at most of silence.

"Look, I'm sorry," Emma said, which got her a shrug of imperious acknowledgment from Regina's shoulders. "I know, I'm sorry, I'm an ass." Now Regina looked over at her. "Please come back here and we'll talk." Three for three. Regina turned back around and sat with her on the couch, making Emma's lap miss her very badly.

"What did Sidney say?" Emma asked.

Regina's lips were pursed, deepening the creases that ringed her mouth. Emma filed away the urge to give those creases a kiss. "It's the campaign," Regina said. "You understand that..." Now a full-fledged frown was forming. "I am not the _ideal _candidate."

Emma opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. During any stage of her political career Regina had never been the ideal candidate.

"Sidney and I were discussing the direction we want the campaign to take." Regina reached to her right hand as if reaching to toy with the ring she wore there, the one with the emerald stone Emma'd bought for her in San Francisco. She'd taken it off for bed, so her hands dropped into her lap. "He thought - _I _thought - that we should seem as... As _normal _as possible."

"You know," Emma said, "it makes me sad that you don't think we're normal."

"As - as _nuclear_, then," Regina said, fumbling a little. "As nuclear and all-American as possible."

"Two point five children and a dog named Rex." Emma slumped against the couch and closed her eyes, wanting regular date night back.

Emma felt Regina's hand stroking her arm gently, giving her pleasant tingles all over and ruining any hope she had of staying angry. "I'm sorry," Regina said, her voice wonderful and warm and soft, a blanket for Emma to wrap herself in. "I know I didn't go about it the right way. I was hoping that our... Our interests would align."

It was such a Regina way of putting it that Emma had to laugh. "Come here." With Regina safely back in her lap, Emma pressed her face into the warm skin of her wife's neck. "Look... We don't _need _kids." Her hands moved up and down Regina's back, stroking her until she relaxed. "You and me, we're enough. I don't regret a thing, okay?"

"Okay," Regina echoed, and they kissed; date night resumed.

* * *

Emma was a pretty good wife. Not the best, but she did what she could. She could tell when she'd made Regina unhappy. It just, you know, sometimes took a while.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked Regina the morning after, when Regina'd woken up at ridiculous o'clock and rolled right into the wet spot on the bed, waking Emma with her squawk of displeasure.

"Fine, dear," Regina said, one side of her hair sticking nearly all the way up from how she'd squashed herself down on Emma's chest in the night. "I have to change these sheets."

Emma scratched herself, yawned, and got up to help. She and Regina bumped heads leaning over the bed to pull the sheets off, and the morning ended cranky, Emma sulking over her coffee in the kitchen while Regina gave a toss of her now-perfect hair and did her regal glide out the door.

"Sorry I hit you with my head," Emma said when they had their lunchtime phone call.

"You always were a blunt instrument, dear," Regina said affably in reply.

"How's your day?" Emma asked, and then, teasingly, "How's Sidney?"

"Sidney," Regina said, "is a paragon."

"Yeah, but of what?"

"I'm just surprised you know what 'paragon' means, dear."

"You asshole," Emma said. "I went to college too, you know."

"Yes," Regina replied, and Emma heard the smile in her voice. "I was there."

"Are you okay?" Emma asked again. She wasn't the kind of woman who had anxieties, but Regina gave her a complex.

This time, Regina sighed slowly. The day had had a chance to work on her. "I've been better," she admitted.

"Tell me," Emma said, wanting her psychology major to be good for something.

The deep sigh from the other end of the line manifested in static. It was getting harder and harder to tease these personal moments out of Regina, to open the closed door. To get her to let Emma into the wardrobe to visit her winter wonderland or whatever. Emma, who wasn't the fretting type, definitely fretted about it. Fretted like an old worried lady. What was going to happen if one day that door swung shut and never opened again?

"It's hard, Emma." Regina's voice had eased into exhaustion. "Emma, it's so hard, every day."

"I know."

"Sometimes I think that it's never going to get easier." She sounded so brittle. "I hate being surrounded by these... All of these..."

"Shitty old white men," Emma supplied, which pulled half a laugh from Regina.

"Quite right," Regina agreed. "Shitty old white men." There was another sigh. Emma could picture her taking off her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose very delicately. "I hate the way they make me feel. I don't like being looked at the way they look at me."

"I know, Regina." They'd had conversations like this before, and this was always right when Emma started to feel helpless and guilty, knowing that as bad as she felt, Regina felt a dozen times worse every day. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't know if I'm ever going to get where I want to be. I don't think they're going to let me, Emma."

"Fuck what they _let _you do," Emma said. "They're not gonna _let _you do anything, you're just gonna _do _it, because you're stronger than they are, you're stronger and you're smarter and you're a _fighter_."

"I am?" It killed Emma how quiet Regina's voice was, how she could still somehow sound _young _when she'd waved forty goodbye.

"You are. You don't deserve their shit. You deserve so much better and one day they're gonna give it to you, they're gonna... They'll... Lick your goddamn _shoes._" Emma's voice climbed with passion, and Regina softly chuckled.

"Is that so?" Regina said, her smile audible in her voice.

"Yeah." Emma quieted to make the next part more serious. "You're gonna be President, Regina. You're going to kick major ass, and you'll be a _good _President. A great one."

Regina gave a little hum of satisfied pleasure.

Emma, in the space of a second or two, had one of her epiphanies. They always came on her unexpected and they were always about things she should have figured out a long time ago, but, well, it wasn't like "insightful" was exactly her middle name. She got things _eventually_.

"And you'd be a great mother," Emma said.

There was no sound from the other side of the line, and Emma wondered if she'd accidentally broken her wife. Happening with a little burst of static like losing a radio signal.

"I'm sorry?" Regina finally said.

"It's what you want, right?" Emma asked, and she really worked to keep her voice gentle and neutral. Regina was right to call her a blunt instrument - she tried to be sensitive and tender like a romance novel hero, but things always came out wrong. She didn't want to fuck this up. "Two point five kids. A dog named Rex."

There was more silence, and Emma wondered how Regina could make _silence _sound young, too, like there was a little girl waiting on the phone to be punished.

"I - sorry." Emma cleared her throat a little. "That was... I wasn't accusing you."

"I imagine," Regina said, "you had one of your _aha _moments."

"They come and go so quickly," Emma agreed, because self-deprecation was her best tool to pull Regina out of herself.

Instead of further confessions, what Regina said was, "I'm going to visit my papi tonight."

"Uh..." Emma checked the desktop calendar, and sure enough, it was Wednesday. "Okay."

"I'll be very late."

"I'll wait up for you," Emma said. "Don't miss the last train again."

"I won't. I'll call you." Because Regina was bad at goodbyes, she hung up. Emma was left looking unhappily at the phone, not sure she hadn't ruined it.

Regina would be home after one in the morning and waking up again in three or four hours. Emma didn't know why she punished herself by doing this during the week - except, yeah, actually, she did, same as she knew why Regina took the Amtrak and the bus in her deadly heels. When kings went on pilgrimage, they took off their shoes and walked barefoot in the mud. Same principle.

Emma waited in her office for a little while, to prepare for an afternoon and evening that wouldn't have Regina in them. When she went back out, she was braced for a long damn day.

* * *

"You need a vacation."

Emma had tried to stay up, but she had never shaken the habit of snatching sleep whenever she could, same as she did with food. When Regina sat down on the bed, Emma woke; when Regina rolled onto her back, Emma spoke.

Regina chuckled thinly in reply, permitting Emma to turn over onto her side and affectionately stroke the curve of her cheek. From this angle, tired like this, Regina looked softer. More malleable.

"I don't get why you do this." Emma touched Regina's jaw lightly. "Punish yourself like this. You could go see your dad on the weekend."

Regina shook her head slightly. "I need him most during the week." She put her hand over Emma's, squeezed a little.

"So the no sleep, keeping me up all night..."

"You weren't _up_, Emma," Regina said, and yawned cutely like a little kitten, stretching her hands above her head. "May I please go to sleep now?" Of course, there was no youth in her voice now that she was being polite.

"We're not going to talk?" Emma said.

"At..." Regina peered at the clock. "Two in the morning?"

"Rex needs to be walked," Emma replied, and Regina eventually sighed, sitting up.

There was a little while of stillness that made Emma wonder if she should go back to sleep; then Regina parted her legs and patted the mattress between them, and Emma, knowing the signal as well as any dog, climbed between Regina's knees and let her hair be played with.

"Gonna fall asleep," Emma warned her the moment Regina's fingers began to scratch lightly over her scalp.

"Oh, I think you'll stay awake, Emma," Regina said in that light, calm voice that was the biggest fucking tease Emma'd ever heard. "We have an important conversation to share, after all."

Emma's reply was "Nnh," as Regina began to gently stroke through her hair. With the part of her brain still functional, she wondered if it was a big deal that Regina needed to have her like this to talk, needed a dopey, insensate Emma to tell about feelings she didn't want to admit she had.

"Two point five kids," Emma reminded her fuzzily, trying to be helpful.

"Yes." Regina's hands paused as she gathered her thoughts, and Emma took advantage, pushing herself backwards and leaning into Regina's chest instead, head on her wife's shoulder. Sleep still dragged on her eyelids, but at least she could focus. While she was there, she stole a kiss to Regina's jaw.

Regina made a soft noise, just as tired, Emma was willing to bet, but much more determined to stay awake. "I never brought it up before," Regina said finally. "It wasn't... Important, until recently."

Emma sank a little lower in Regina's lap and pressed her ear to her chest. "What's that ticking sound?" she said. "Is that a _biological clock_?"

Regina swatted her. "I'm serious."

"Sorry." Emma found her place again and picked up Regina's arms, wrapping them snugly around her. "I'm listening."

"I don't know what to say." Regina's voice was soft in her ear. Emma decided now wasn't the time to tease her. "I don't think I can explain it. It just happened."

"You just suddenly wanted kids," Emma said.

"Yes."

Emma stroked one of Regina's hands, trying to parse how she felt about that. "I just... I thought it was never going to be a thing."

"It's not something I have control over, Emma." Regina's fingers plucked idly at Emma's pajama top, without interest, looking for something to hold onto.

Emma tried to think harder about this kid thing, but tiredness was making her head hurt. "How was your visit?" she asked. "With your dad?"

Regina hummed softly, still fussing with the fabric of Emma's shirt. "It was - good. I brought him some new flowers. Talked to him." The hem of Emma's top came up a little so that Regina could pet her bare skin. Emma remembered when Regina was so shy she could barely even ask permission to touch, squirming at the thought of uttering a simple _can I? _"I asked him what I should tell you."

"Did he say anything?" Emma asked, watching as Regina drew patterns on the thin strip of skin exposed to her.

"He said, tell her that you love her." Regina's hand stilled, then settled. "Ask her about her day. Remind her that no matter what, she's the most important person in your world."

"Your dad gives good advice." Emma felt a steep pang of vicarious longing for him, Regina's best friend and only ally in her mother's house. She'd only met Henry once or twice before he died.

"I love you." Regina kissed Emma's temple. "How was your day?"

"I saw Tommy again today." Emma stroked the back of Regina's hand. "His arm is healing really good."

"Really _well_," Regina said, because even when she was being affectionate she couldn't stop being a jerk. Also because Emma tended to use bad grammar just to tease her.

"His mom is doing better too," Emma continued as though Regina hadn't spoken. "She's been clean for three weeks. The program's really - it's _helping _her, Regina, she's really... She's pulling through. And Tommy's happier. He told me his older sister came for a visit and that she was going to come again next week."

"You're helping them so much," Regina murmured, and Emma shook her head.

She said, "No." She lifted Regina's hand, kissed it. "It's all them. They're the strong ones." Like you, she thought.

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Regina said, punctuating the sentence with a kiss to Emma's head. "Funny, with an ego the size of a -"

"Is that any way to talk to the most important person in your world?" Emma asked.

"Definitely not." Regina squeezed Emma close.

They lay together like that, just breathing, for so long that Emma started to fall asleep again. Trying to keep awake, she said, "Wait. Rex."

"We don't have to worry about that now," Regina said, sounding as tired as Emma was. More tired. Regina'd earned a couple hours of rest.

"Soon, though," Emma said, starting to drift off. Imagining, unbidden, her and Regina and a baby. A child like Emma had been, like Tommy, who shook on the brink of being unwanted. A little boy.

"Soon," Regina agreed, not all there.

"Name'm Henry," Emma muttered, and fell asleep.


End file.
